Pinch of Nom

[daisyducky]

Hi, has anyone lost weight using the Punch of Nom recipes.

DH & I started a weight loss journey this week and I've been using PON for our evening meals. I just used it as I liked the look of some recipes as they were diet versions of what we usually eat. But I have done a little research and PON does not seem popular including the authors haven't used it for weight loss themselves.

Just interested as the 2 meals I have cooked so far, the portion for the lemon chicken pasta dish I cooked wouldn't have fed my 2 year old and then last night the portion of dirty rice was huge!

Don't want to get a few weeks in to find its not going to work & then lose motivation. I need to lose 20kg and DH 30kg!

They used to promote (?) Slimming World and give syn values and also points for Weightwatchers.
There are a lot of fans who use them as part of a calorie controlled diet or as part of a slimming "club". Portion size is variable as you say.

Thanks we did another recipe tonight and did 1.5 portions each which was adequate. Kids hated it tho 😂

I swear my blood ran cold there for a second 😂

The Cookbook I flicked through once a few months ago. It seemed quite basic cookery but I cook everything from scratch anyway... ten years ago it would have been fine for me

Portion size is my ultimate flaw though so I REALLY can’t comment on that

@daisyducky

Thanks we did another recipe tonight and did 1.5 portions each which was adequate. Kids hated it tho 😂

What did you make? Are they tasty?

I do love cookbooks

I use quite a few of their recipes and am loosing weight. However, I add up the calories for what I've actually used to make the recipes in my fitness pal - and decide how big a portion to have based on that. I've made their Cajun Dirty Rice, and it worked out pretty low calorie for me when I calculated it, it's one of my favourites of their recipes. I'm not quite sure what you mean by following them though, are you using calorie counting or following SW or WW? Some of their recipes are low calorie, others are more treats and higher calories - you'd have to watch how many of the latter you had. Their approach is to cut the calories by upping veg and cutting fat, so they aren't popular with those whose preferred approach is to keep the fats but cut the carbs

I actually use a website called Slimming Eats more, if you want to look for some further options.

@PinchOfVom

I swear my blood ran cold there for a second 😂

The Cookbook I flicked through once a few months ago. It seemed quite basic cookery but I cook everything from scratch anyway... ten years ago it would have been fine for me

Portion size is my ultimate flaw though so I REALLY can’t comment on that

😂

Yep portion size for me too. Over the years I have lot all concept of what is normal.

I think I was looking at it in comparison to what a M&S count on us meal would look like.

But even before dieting I did weigh out pasta and rice tho.

@PinchOfVom

Lemon chicken pasta with spinach was delicious (if you like lemon) but portion was small but we upped portion size as we were still within calorie count for the day

Dirty rice was good too. Husband added a chilli for a bit more spice

Sneaky Mac & cheese. Husband loved it and kids hated it. We did 1.5 portions of this.

Trying to get recipes that everyone will eat and then work out portion sizes for the calorie count 🤦🏻‍♀️ I got my maths muddled this evening

@CrabbyCat

I use quite a few of their recipes and am loosing weight. However, I add up the calories for what I've actually used to make the recipes in my fitness pal - and decide how big a portion to have based on that. I've made their Cajun Dirty Rice, and it worked out pretty low calorie for me when I calculated it, it's one of my favourites of their recipes. I'm not quite sure what you mean by following them though, are you using calorie counting or following SW or WW? Some of their recipes are low calorie, others are more treats and higher calories - you'd have to watch how many of the latter you had. Their approach is to cut the calories by upping veg and cutting fat, so they aren't popular with those whose preferred approach is to keep the fats but cut the carbs

I actually use a website called Slimming Eats more, if you want to look for some further options.

Thanks for the slimming eats tip. I'll look that up too.

DH has calculated what our calorie intake should be and we're using MFP to track it.

Anytime I've used calorie count to diet I've eaten around 1200 and been starving but I'm eating around 1350 now and I'm quite satisfied so I'm trying to work out where the disjoin is.

Also when I enter the meal in MFP the calorie count for the meal is way off what PON say it is. I know I should enter each food individually but with 2 preschoolers I don't have time for this.

I just don't want to be caught out a few weeks down the line with hidden calories. I can lose motivation v quickly.

Even when I entered a Caffè Nero regular skinny latte into the MFP app it came up with a load of varied answers so I'd to go to the CN website to get an accurate answer.

Lemon chicken pasta sounds delish ❤️

I am doing a plant based thing at the moment but when I fall off the wagon (give it a few hours 🙄) I might try that

For anybody lacking portion control, I did very successfully lose loss of weight a long time ago by allowing myself a M&S diner every night and nothing else. It was pricey but felt like a treat and after 39 days I had a far better idea about portions

Currently I eat and weigh more than my husband which is frightening given he’s well over a foot taller than me and runs about 49 miles a week 🙄

I've been calorie counting for the last 3 weeks and have lost 11lbs so far (the first 7 was probably water weight as I have a lot to loose). I've been using the Pinch of nom books for most of our evening meals as well as the slimming eats book which is also great.

The portions can sometimes look small so I always usually add a large portion of salad/ veg and that seems to keep me full. The recommended portion size also fills DH up fine and he's never had any problems with portion control so I think my views of the sizes are massively skewed due to years of over eating.

I just go by the calories in the book plus whatever extras I have with it and it seems to be working well, I do eat less in the day as I prefer to have a big evening meal so usually any extra calories fit in fine with the daily allowance. Tonight's dinner for example was the dirty macaroni which I had with salad and homemade garlic bread and that was under 600 Cals.

My favourite book is definitely the new Comfort food one, just seems like there's loads more appealing recipes in there, the sweet/ sticky meatballs are absolutely gorgeous!

@SandyClaws6

I've been calorie counting for the last 3 weeks and have lost 11lbs so far (the first 7 was probably water weight as I have a lot to loose). I've been using the Pinch of nom books for most of our evening meals as well as the slimming eats book which is also great.

The portions can sometimes look small so I always usually add a large portion of salad/ veg and that seems to keep me full. The recommended portion size also fills DH up fine and he's never had any problems with portion control so I think my views of the sizes are massively skewed due to years of over eating.

I just go by the calories in the book plus whatever extras I have with it and it seems to be working well, I do eat less in the day as I prefer to have a big evening meal so usually any extra calories fit in fine with the daily allowance. Tonight's dinner for example was the dirty macaroni which I had with salad and homemade garlic bread and that was under 600 Cals.

My favourite book is definitely the new Comfort food one, just seems like there's loads more appealing recipes in there, the sweet/ sticky meatballs are absolutely gorgeous!

Congrats on the weight loss. That's a brilliant result so far. You must be delighted.

Fab will keep going with the PON recipes. I'm just using it for evening meals too, then having smaller breakfasts and lunches - well no extras and no snacks - maybe that was my downfall....As I've pretty much been the same weight the past 2 years so what I've been eating has been maintaining my weight so it's about making better choices & portion control.

I've looked at slimming eats too and there are some great recipes there too. It's just about building up a new household menu and getting quicker at cooking these things.

Will definitely be adding more veg for our meals and for the kids too. We normally do have extra veg with dinner - it's my kids favourite part so don't want them to go off it!

The homemade garlic bread sounds delicious too.

What I do like about the PON website is that you can adjust the recipe for how many portion you want to cook!

I wouldn't bother with my fitness pal, nutracheck is miles better! I really like pinch of nom recipes, for someone like me who only really started cooking/eating stuff made from scratch as an adult I find them just the right complexity to make, love that some are really quick as well. I personally follow the portion sizes as this is something I've always struggled with judging for myself. The Chinese brocoli and chicken is my favourite!

With the Pinch of Nom recipes originally being Slimming World, I'm wondering if the idea was you had a big pile of veg as well?

I've never done Slimming World, but the Slimming Eats lady talks about wanting a third of what's on your plate to be 'speed foods' and gives suggestions for what you could have alongside for a lot of her recipes. As far as I can tell, speed food are veg, although I have no idea where that's all veg or only certain sorts. It struck me as a sensible approach generally, not just when dieting.

With entering meals into MFP, just to check you know that if they are off a website link, you can enter the address into MFP and it pulls the ingredients list in automatically with quantities for you, it then tries to get all the calorie info for you. I usually have to go and correct a few, but it makes it a lot faster.